Assessing prospective memory in older age: the relationship between self-report and performance on clinic-based and naturalistic tasks

This investigation assessed the relationship between subjective self-reports and objective measures of prospective memory with forty-eight healthy, community-dwelling older-adults (> 65 years). The Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire provided the self-report data, the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test was used as a clinic-based test, and the Telephone Task (telephoning the examiner at irregular, pre-scheduled times across one week) was used as a naturalistic measure. The self-reported difficulties were negatively associated with performance on the naturalistic task, r (41) = -0.341, p = <0.05, but not the clinic-based task. Performance tasks (clinic-based and naturalistic) were moderately associated, r (41) = 0.312, p = <0.05. Tests of retrospective memory (delayed recall) and executive function (attention set-shifting) did not individually predict performance on any of the prospective memory measures. Incorporating naturalistic probes of prospective memory performance into a clinical assessment may allow insight into the experience of prospective memory challenges in older-age clients.